Betadine ointment. The contents of his Foley catheter bag. The hospital breakfast that some unfortunate soul was faced with one or two rooms over. Those were not the odors from his dream.

"Damn." Naruto frowned, looking around the room. The Hospital again! Great! Wonderful! How long would he be in this time? "But, it could have been worse." He muttered unhappily, thinking back to his dream. He had been eating Ramen. All of the girls in the village had been lined up, wearing outfits taken from his favorite anime shows. They were bringing him an endless supply of noodles.

The fantasy was definitely better than the last waking moments of reality that he could remember. The battle with Akatsuki had been in its final closing moments. He and the other Leaf shinobi had all done so well, but were each in desperate straights after a series of hard fought skirmishes. That's when the Akatsuki leader had struck out at Naruto with one last desperation move. If their organization couldn't use the Kyuubi's power to their own end, they would break the seal and release the beast.

Had the Nine Tails gotten loose, the youma would have made a mad dash towards Konoha, slavering jaws open in anticipation. Its retribution would have been a terrible thing to see. The demon fox would not be caught by the same trick twice! The fact that the hospital was intact… and Naruto was there, hooked up to IVs and monitoring equipment… was a good indication that the monster had never been set free.

"Hah! Ero-sennin said that I wouldn't survive, if I used that jutsu." Naruto yawned and then put both hands behind his neck. One IV pole almost toppled over when he accidentally tugged hard on the line. An equipment lead fell off of his arm when the tape holding it peeled away from his skin. "But, I guess it worked." He swallowed hard. He peaked under his blanket and checked to see if he was intact. Every important piece of anatomy was still there.

The forbidden technique had thwarted the Akatsuki leader's efforts. But, it had affected Naruto's mind in a strange way. He remembered having a hallucination, one that seemed so real. Kyuubi had managed to escape from behind his navel, but only in part. After Naruto had thrown the remainder of his own chakra into his own efforts, he collapsed, his vision blurry and his breath coming in great gasps. For a moment, he had seen what seemed to be…

"What the?" Naruto jerked his legs. Something warm had brushed against them. Wondering if he was dreaming again, he watched as something burrowed under his blanket like a mole in shallow soil. He grimaced as he felt something prick his belly and chest. A nose poked out from under the edge of his blanket. "This can't be real!"

Naruto threw the blanket onto the floor with one sweep of his arm. His eyes widened. No way! No f-cking way! There was a fox sitting on his chest, now busying itself with a brief bit of grooming. Maybe the vision he had seen in that cave had been real after all!

"I thought you looked stupid from the inside." The fox had a high-pitched voice. It frowned in vulpine fashion, realizing just how comical it sounded. "If the Fourth Hokage wasn't already dead, I would kill him for sealing me into someone so pitiful. I'm going to get my vengeance on you, insect, for preventing my escape."

"B-B-But…" Naruto rubbed his eyes. The fox was still there. "How…" It was that jutsu. Somehow the portion of Kyubbi's essence that managed to escape had taken on a form of its own. However, he somehow sensed that there was still some connection to the demon inside of him. The small form was not a separate entity. "You should be happy to be out at all, even a small part of you!"

"It is not the place of one such as you to instruct one such as me about what I should or should not do." The fox looked somewhat haughty. "I shall go forth and eat, terrorizing this puling village in whatever small way I can. It has been sixteen years since I have fed." The fox laughed, until the sound of its own laughter made it cringe. "You won't be happy that a part of me roams free. I can promise you that!"

"Oh yeh?" Naruto sat up abruptly, sending the fox tumbling. "I'll ring your scrawny little neck before you can make your way back inside me, or find your way out of this sick house!" He grabbed for the fox, getting a firm grip around its neck. "Shit!" The small partial-Kyuubi avatar sank its teeth into a tender spot of his hand.

The fox jumped out of reach, standing much the way the full-sized demon had whenever it called out a challenge. "I wish I could kill you and eat you! But, that would be the end of me too." It snarled. "But, there are parts of you that I can remove without killing you." Grabbing hold of the Foley catheter bag with its teeth, it jumped off of the bed. The catheter was pulled out of Naruto's privates with the balloon still inflated. "Now, I just need to gnaw that small thing off of you…"

"Ouch! Crap!" Naruto's eyes teared up. That hurt! "Little bastard fox. There's no place for you to run." He slid out of bed, aching all over. Lunging after the fox, he knocked an IV pole over. Grabbing for the retreating form, he ran head first into a large monitor, falling hard to his rump, seeing stars. Picking up his bedpan, he threw it, scoring a direct hit. "Yeh!" Wanting to keep from getting bitten again, he picked up his blanket, intending to throw it over the fox. "I'm going to have you made into a pair of fuzzy slippers."

"What's going on in here?" That was Tsunade's voice. She opened the door to the room.

"No, Old Lady! Don't open the door." Naruto shouted. "The fox…"

Before Naruto could stop it, the Kyuubi fox ran right past the Hokage, who had her eyes on Naruto and the mess that he had made of his room.

"Fox? What are you talking about?" Tsunade walked over to look at Naruto's chart. "Are you hallucinating again? Shizune said you were talking rather strangely when Kakashi brought you in."

"No! I'm not seeing things. That jutsu I used… it kept Kyuubi sealed… but not all of him." He saw the fox peak back into the room. "There! By the door! Too slow, Granny."

When Tsunade turned to look, the fox was no longer visible. "That's enough of that. I want you to lay down in bed. No more excitement today." The Hokage motioned towards the hospital bed.

"Well then… I guess a blow job is out of the question, then… right?" That was Naruto's voice. But, it hadn't been him who spoke. The Kyuubi fox had the ability to change its voice, if not its shape. As Kyuubi's consciousness had spent long years inside of Naruto, it knew everything that he knew, having seen and heard everything that he had. While 'blow job' was not a word a demon such as the Nine Tails would use in all its glory, it fit the situation perfectly.

"WHAT!" Tsunade balled one of her hands into a fist.

Naruto swallowed hard.

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A/N:

is just a teaser. I'll work on this story more, someday.

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.